


All the Little Lives We Could Have Lived

by chronocides



Category: Titanic RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 21:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronocides/pseuds/chronocides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wears a ring from him beside her wedding ring. At least, she used to. She's shed two wedding rings, but his remains on her hand. She has never loved anyone as completely as she does him, and he is the same. They take the roundabout road to go where they need to be, but the important thing is that they get there in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Little Lives We Could Have Lived

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kindness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kindness/gifts).



> Tense changes are jarring but deliberate. I apologize for all mistakes-- factual or otherwise. I hope you like it, kindness_says!

_All the Little Lives We Could Have Lived_

 _Cannes, 1995_

He still didn't know how it happened.

He was trying to tie his tie. He had never been good at that-- whenever he'd had to wear ties before, he would have someone do the knot for him, then loosen and tighten it as he saw fit. He was staring fixedly at his reflection in the mirror, trying to tie his goddamn tie, when someone knocked at the door.

"Fuck," he said, and went over to the door, opening it a crack. There was a flash of sunlight on red hair, and a familiar voice saying, "Leo, open up, it's me."

He opened the door a little wider, and she took this as permission to enter the room. He did know her. He'd done a screen test with her only a few weeks ago. It was a good part, but it wasn’t for him. He’d played Arnie, and god knows Romeo was gritty as hell, and then you had this bohemian with a heart of gold? It wasn’t for him. He’d tried to get it across during the screen test, trying to be as gritty and awful as possible, but she wouldn’t let him be. She had looked so focused and so intent that he couldn’t help matching her energy, just for a moment. A moment that James Cameron hadn’t missed, apparently, according to his agent, who was fielding daily calls from the director.

"Hi there," he said. "Kate, right?"

The smile she shot him was brilliant. He felt the corners of his mouth tilting upwards in an automatic response. She was wearing a blue dress, cut low—she had really nice breasts, Leo noted. He’d be ashamed to call himself a red-blooded male if he failed to notice that. She was holding her shoes in one hand. Their heels looked spiky and sharp. Leo noticed that too, because he liked incongruity, and there was something charmingly inappropriate about this total English rose of a girl to be wearing heels like that.

“I’m not supposed to be here,” she said, going over to the window and peering through the drapes. “But when I heard you were here, I knew I just had to see you.” A flash of sunlight fell onto her hair, setting it aflame.

She looked very young suddenly, silhouetted by the sunlight. He didn’t like to canoodle with his co-stars, this was true, but it wasn’t like he was going to take the role, no matter what James Cameron said about his acting ability. And she was right there, and she was still smiling at him. They had chemistry, he knew that, but he’d also watched her walk away from him after the screen test had ended, shaking hands with the studio execs who had muscled their way in, worried that James might be overstating the profitability of the venture, and with James himself. This girl could have chemistry with a coffee cup if it came to that.

He stepped towards her, and before he could talk himself out of it, he bracketed her hips lightly with his hands and kissed her. Her mouth opened under his, and he mentally pumped his fist in victory as he slid his tongue between her lips. She was kissing him back, warm under his hands, her own hands curving around his jaw, holding him there.

She was a great kisser. Leo would bet all the money he had that she was also _amazing_ in bed.

As he was deciding on whether or not he could undo the hook on her dress from this angle, or if he had the time to spare before his agent came knocking on the door, she pulled away from him. She didn’t go very far— his hands were still on her hips and her arms were locked around his neck. Her cheeks were pink and some of her curls were escaping from where they were pinned. It tickled his nose a little. He resisted the urge to sneeze as she gazed up at him, her eyes warm and blue.

“That was wonderful,” she said throatily, and Leo grinned, ducking his head to kiss her again, but then she was tilting her head away. “Now don’t you see why you should do _Titanic?_ ”

“Uh,” said Leo, momentarily struck dumb.

“See, there’s this _frisson_ between us,” she said, thumping lightly on his chest. “You are perfect for Jack. You’re so brilliant, Leo.” She was still looking up at him, her eyes bright and intent. They looked less like limpid pools out of Jane Austen now. They looked far more cunning. It was pretty damn hot but he didn’t like that look on her.

He may have misread this entire situation.

“You should do this film,” she said, her voice going low. “I told James, that even if he didn’t pick me, he had to choose you. Because you are a genius.”

Leo had had dreams about this moment, when he’d have a gorgeous girl in his arms and she would be telling him about how he was a peerless actor and no one came near to matching his caliber. Funny how sometimes you get what you want and it’s not nearly as enticing as it was in your head.

She was doing something with his collar, playing idly with it, most likely. She still had one arm around his neck.

“Please say you’ll do it,” she said, and there’s something about her voice. He’d heard her use this voice before, on-screen, and it’s just as charming then as it is now. He imagined that she used this voice to get just about anything she wanted, because he certainly can’t imagine anyone turning her down after she used that voice on them.

“No one else can be Jack,” she said. “No one else _should_ be Jack. It will be absolutely awful without you.”

“I thought you said you wouldn’t do it,” he said. She laughed and smacked him in the shoulder. She had heavy hands, for a girl, and he winced.

“That’s up to James, of course,” she said. “And if they don’t pick me after you sign on, I will camp out in front of James’s house and shout at him until he casts me.”

“So we’re in this together or not at all, is that it?” he joked, sliding a companionable arm around her waist.

“Now you’re getting it,” she said. Her smile lit up her whole face. “Oh Leo!” she said, going up on her tiptoes to hug him. Her fantastic breasts were getting crushed against his chest. “We’re going to have so much fun together!”

“I haven’t agreed yet,” he said, and laughed when she pulled back and glared at him.

“No take-backs,” she said. She held her hand out and they shook on it, gravely. Then she kissed him on the cheek, scooped her shoes up from the floor, and was out the door before he could even register that she was on the move.

He knew then that he would never sleep with her.

When he glanced at his reflection in the mirror, he grinned at how he looked. His hair was a mess, his lips looked a little swollen, and there was a lipstick mark on his cheek. He wondered how many heart attacks his agent and his manager would suffer between the two of them if he strolled down the red carpet looking like this.

His bowtie was perfectly tied though. It would be worth doing this movie just to learn how she’d done that one-handed.

 

 _Rosarito, 1996_

“So we’ll be shooting the nude drawing scene first,” Jim said, and even though she had read the script a million times, and had sent Jim countless missives on what the mood of the scene was, or what was Rose’s fucking motivation, there was still a vaguely unsettling swooping feeling in Kate’s stomach when he said it out loud. She snuck a glance at Leo, who was nodding at something Jim said.

 _In a few hours,_ Kate thought. _I’ll be naked in front of that man. He’ll be staring at me. I’ll be completely starkers, and he’s going to be looking at me._

She chanced another glance at Leo again, gazing at him from beneath her lashes. He met her eyes and waggled his eyebrows, smiling the smarmiest smile she’d ever seen on him, and she laughed. Luckily, Jim was done talking then, so he didn’t register that she hadn’t been listening at all since he’d announced the shooting schedule for today. When he moved off to talk to the director of photography, Leo scampered over to where she was sitting and straddled the bench behind her, leaning so his chin was perched on her shoulder. If she turned her head, her mouth would smack against his cheek, maybe catch the corner of his mouth.

It was truly unprofessional, the yearning shudder she tamped down as Leo wriggled closer to her.

“So I heard you’re gonna get naked for me today,” he said, breath puffing against the side of her face as he spoke. She laughed and patted his leg.

“Try to keep your eyes in when I take the robe off, will you darling?” she replied. Her voice did not shake at all, this was a job, she was a professional. It would be fine.

“No promises,” said Leo, still in that light, joking tone. She thought that was it, that he’d move away then, but then he ran sure fingers against her ribs, surprising another laugh out of her. He blew a raspberry into the back of her neck, and she shrieked and tried to get away from him, but he held on, tickling her. She slapped at his hands as he tried to lift her off the bench.

“You are the worst,” she told him, when he finally let her go. Half her hair had fallen from the knot she’d tied it in that morning, and her top was all wrinkled. She had no illusions on how she looked, which was most probably a total mess. She caught sight of her reflection in a pane of glass leaning against a wall— not only did she look a mess, she looked a bit on the debauched side. She sighed and pushed her hair away from her face.

“Sorry,” said Leo, kicking his feet. He didn’t sound the least bit sorry though, and Kate hit him in the shoulder again. “Don’t be mad.”

“I’m not angry with you,” Kate assured him seriously. He grinned at her then, peering at her through his bangs. In answer, she dealt him a sharp smack on his bum, and started running.

“Aww, no fair!” he called after her, as she ducked, cackling, into a nearby trailer. “I’ll get you back for that!”

 _Of course you will,_ Kate thought crazily. _Of course, of course, of course. It wouldn’t be half as much fun if you didn’t._

 

 _Boston, 2005_

Patrick was very nice. Very professional. He was good with the child actors—he would probably make a great father.

She didn’t know if it was just her reading too much into the character, or something to do with the terrible weather they’d been having, but the day that that they were supposed to do the scene where Patrick fucked her (or rather, Brad fucked Sarah) against the washing machine, she felt almost… bored. Completely out of it.

In make-up she was listless—she kept glancing out of the window.

“Are you okay?” asked Matilda, the make-up artist, smoothing foundation over Kate’s chin. Kate nodded but did not speak. When Matilda gestured for her to stand up, so they could even out the color on her shoulders, her breasts, and her thighs, Kate did so. She glanced clinically at herself in the mirror, as she did when she had to bare it all for __Jude__ and again when it became clear that she would be Kate in Titanic. Her body was different now than it was then—she was a little thicker in the thighs and there were stretchmarks that certainly weren’t there when she was twenty. It felt a little like she was looking at the body of another woman, a complete stranger.

Patrick was already on-set when she walked on it. He gave her a smile and a nod, still in conversation with Todd. When Todd moved away to check on the lights, he walked over to her, swinging the tie of his rope playfully.

“Are you ready?” he asked her. She hated him for asking. She tried to keep her voice light as she replied.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

When all the lights were on and the cameras rolling, Kate positioned herself on the washing machine. Patrick moved to stand between her legs. She had shed her robe by then, wanting to get into the moment, but Patrick kept on his. He put one large, warm hand on the curve of her waist.

He was a very handsome man. Pity she wasn’t attracted to him.

She tried imagining Sam in his place, and nearly laughed. Sam was a wonderful lover—she would not have married him if he wasn’t, but there was something largely incongruous about him in this kind of situation. No, if Sam were on the set of a love scene, his place was behind the cameras, firmly calling the shots. That was who he was. And Sam-the-director was different from Sam-her-husband. Alone in her bed at the hotel they were putting up the actors in for the duration of the shooting, she had no problems imagining Sam for her own private pleasure, but it seemed spurious to use him here.

Patrick shifted against her then, shaking her out of her reverie. He had handed the robe off at some point, and now all that remained between him and her was the strange combination of nappy and condom used in almost all love scenes. This wasn’t a porno, after all.

“Are you all right?” Patrick asked her. His shoulders were broad and warm under her hands as she reached up and braced herself on him. Todd was still adjusting the lights, murmuring this and that to the crew that flitted about on the set. When she looked up into Patrick’s eyes, she saw that his concern was genuine.

She smiled at him, patted him lightly on the shoulder. “Yes.”

She really wasn’t attracted to him, and something about his solicitous tone made her feel itchy and unsettled in her skin. She suddenly remembered Leo, in that funny little set meant to be the back of a Renault touring car, how Leo never asked, just took and gave and expected her to do the same. She missed him.

“Patrick, Kate, when you’re ready,” Todd called.

Patrick cleared his throat, as though he was going to say something, but instead he started moving his hips. Kate was expecting it, and she started moving her body in response, but then Todd was calling cut, and as soon as he did, Patrick’s hips halted.

“Kate, can we up the passion a little?” Todd said, and Kate nodded. “The cameras are on your face for this sequence, so we’ll need you to sell it to us.”

 _“Sell it to us,” Jim said from behind the camera. Leo met her eyes and rolled his, and Kate tamped down on a giggle. Leo pinched her and she resisted the urge to shriek. His hand had been hidden by one of her voluminous layers of petticoat and silk, and she hadn’t expected it. “Make us believe that there’s no other place but this.”_

 _Jim sounded ridiculous, but Kate knew what he meant. The minute the cameras started rolling again, she lifted her arms to rest them on Leo’s shoulders, and he leaned forward to kiss her. The hand that he’d used to pinch her was warm on her thigh, and he tasted a little sharp and citrusy against her lips, from the oranges they’d eaten for dessert after their sandwiches, like real sailors trying to ward off scurvy. She probably tasted the same, and she ran her hands over his back and shoulders. Rose was a virgin, but with Jack there was nothing to fear or dread. Jack was the kindest man she had ever known.  
_

 _She lost herself in it, in the feel of Leo’s hands, the weight of his body against hers. The whirr and click of the lights and cameras faded into near-silence as she felt Leo fit his body into the spaces of hers. It was frightening and exhilarating all at once, the hushed intimacy of it—of all the places Kate thought to find that, this was the last she’d consider. But here it was._

“And cut,” Todd called out. Kate’s eyes flew open. Had she fallen asleep on set? What take were they on?

She looked up at Patrick to find him smiling at her, a little quizzical and wondering.

“That was great,” he said, almost gushed really. “That was really great.”

“Okay, we’re moving to close ups,” Todd called, and the set suddenly flew into a riot of action as the cameras and lights were shifted around.

“That was pretty intense,” Patrick said. “What were you thinking of?” He sounded like a student, and she smiled.

“Nothing much,” she said jokingly. “Just my first time in the back of a car.”

Patrick threw his head back and laughed. He really was quite charming. She found herself laughing with him, feeling awake for the first time in ages.

 _New York, 2011_   


Kate met Blake just the once—Kate and Leo always had standing dinner plans whenever she was in New York, and she thought nothing of it as she rolled up to his place in Brooklyn and let herself in his apartment. He had a tendency to do the same when he was in London, though he always did it at the secret flat she kept in Chelsea and not the house she’d lived in with Sam. Sometimes, when she stopped over at the Chelsea flat, she would find butts from cigarettes she had never smoked, and the sheets would be changed and the shelves stocked with the curious things Leo liked to eat and drink. Sometimes there would be flowers. Sometimes she would come, and the flowers would be wilting, and she would have to throw them away, but the best times were when she would walk in and the flowers would be fresh, and the rooms recently aired. She would stay there, if only for a few hours, maybe catching a nap in a bed that was still warm from him.

She had let herself in at his Brooklyn loft, and surprised the girl—Kate could not think of her as anything else, for she was coltish and almost gangly, jangling cups and saucers and spoons in Leo’s minuscule kitchen. For a moment, she thought it was Bar, and she was suddenly relieved—out of all of Leo’s girls, she was the one Kate got along with best. She was calling out a greeting when the girl turned and Kate saw it was someone else.

The girl had dropped a cup, and it made an empty thunk against the floor before shattering into pieces. Kate had leapt into action.

“Oh dear,” said Kate, rushing over to the girl’s side. “Oh, I startled you, didn’t I? I’m so sorry.”

“No, it was my fault,” said the girl, her voice coming out in a nervous, mumbled rush over Kate’s. She stood in the middle of the kitchen, wearing what looked like one of Leo’s shirts and precious little else, and had wrung her hands.

The noise had sent Leo striding out of his bedroom to find Kate sweeping up the debris of the coffee cup, and Blake seated at the table, nursing a cup of coffee.

“Kate,” he said, without even a good morning for the girl sitting at the table. “What are you doing?”

“I let myself in,” she said. “My plane touched down an hour ago, and you know how I feel about hotels.” He did, because he felt that way himself. “I surprised, uh—,”

“Blake,” supplied the girl—Blake— and she waved shyly.

“Well, so I surprised Blake, and she accidentally dropped the World’s Best Nuncle mug Joe gave you the last time we were here.”

“I’m so sorry,” Blake said again, plaintively.

“It was my fault,” she said kindly. Blake brushed back her blonde hair and slouched over her mug again.

“I should have called,” Kate said to Leo, who shook his head.

“I never call when I’m in London,” he pointed out. At one point, he had taken the broom and dustpan from her and swept the debris into the trash. She took it back from him now and put it away where he always stored his cleaning supplies. They wash their hands side by side at the sink, and Leo raised still-damp fingers to her hair, sweeping a lock behind her ear. “You must be dead-tired, Katie.”

He never called her that unless he was worried, and Leo in his infinite confidence was rarely so worried. She couldn’t think too much about it though, because she _was_ dead-tired. She leaned into him, swaying a little into his warmth.

There was a quiet clink of porcelain against wood, and Kate stepped back, aware that they weren’t alone.

“Uh,” said Blake, eyes darting between the two of them. “I’d better go.” She dashed into the bedroom. Kate raised her eyebrows at Leo, who waggled his back.

“She’s very young,” she whispered, sotto-voce, and Leo laughed, leaning his forehead against hers.

“I missed you,” he said, pressing a kiss against her temple. “You should come visit me more.”

“I’m here now,” she said, and they stayed pressed against each other for a long time—Kate would swear that she fell asleep then, leaning against the kitchen sink with Leo’s arm around her, holding her up.

They never even heard Blake leaving.

 

 _Los Angeles and London, 2011_

She learned about it from her assistant—she was new, and young, and like all young people she seemed surgically attached to her mobile.

That night, tucked up in bed, she calls him.

“Naked photos,” she laughs, when he picks up.

“Shut up,” he says.

“But really,” Kate insists. “Naked _photos_. Oh, the poor girl.”

“Stop,” Leo begs. “Please just stop.”

“I saw one of her films with Mia,” Kate says. “The one with the pants.” She pauses. “But I suppose you’ve already seen her without them.”

“You are a terrible person,” Leo scolds.

“Is it really her?” Kate asks brightly. “My, you’ll have to give her the time of day now instead of romancing her on a random yacht.”

“They weren't for me,” Leo says. “I don't know who they're for, but they're not for me. At least, I haven't gotten anything.”

“Aren't we the confident one,” teases Kate. “Should I get off the phone, in case she rings you for some phone sex?”

“I don't--,” says Leo. He falls silent, long enough for Kate to worry that the connection's been broken.

“Can we talk about something else?” Leo says finally.

“Speaking of Mia,” Kate says. It's not the smoothest segue in the world, but the last thing she wants is for Leo to feel like she's prying. Something must have happened with Blake then. Something prickles in her, uncomfortable, when she imagines that Leo would keep something from her, because he's ashamed or because he's afraid of what she would think.

“Speaking of Mia?” Leo presses.

“She went on a sleepover the other night,” says Kate. “One of her school friends.”

“Let me guess,” says Leo. “Separation anxiety?”

“Mia?” says Kate. She would be hard-pressed to name something that unfazed her indomitable daughter, who was only ever that way because Leo had a vested interest in making sure she grew up to be whatever she wanted to be. Sometimes things came out of Mia's mouth that sounded exactly like Leo, and it was both slightly frightening and hugely entertaining when it happened.

“No,” says Leo. “I was asking about you.”

“Well, yes,” says Kate. “She could be thirty-six and married and I would still, always be anxious about her.”

“Me too,” says Leo, quiet as a confession, and Kate feels as if Leo were beside her in that moment, instead of thousands of miles away.

There's a comfortable silence, but then Kate remembers the bombshell Mia had brought home when Kate picked her up the next morning.

“They watched Titanic,” Kate says, torn between horrified and laughing, and there's a thunk on the other end. “Leo?”

“Sorry,” Leo gasps, a few seconds later. “Dropped my phone on my foot. Hurts like a bitch. What's the verdict?”

“All the other girls were swooning,” says Kate. “And Mia said she wanted the floor to open up and swallow her.”

“That bad?” says Leo.

“It was like finding a porno of her parents,” laughs Kate, and on the other end, Leo chuckles weakly. “A porno with a lot of feelings.”

“Don't let her near Revolutionary Road then,” says Leo.

“Never,” Kate promises, and talk turns to Gatsby and the new projects Kate's been looking at.

The next day, Kate wakes up with her phone buzzing in her ear, pressed between her and her pillow. When she looks at her phone, there's a series of texts from Leo.

 _Can't believe you fell asleep on me._

 _Reminds me of that time we fell asleep on your bed in Rosarito._

 _You were all croaky the next day because we talked through the night._

 _I wish I were there._

 _So I could draw on your face like I did then._

 _And I promise I won't use indelible ink like last time._

Kate scrolls through the texts, laughing. It's not a bad way to start the day.

 _Sydney, 2011_

He gets a lot of flak from the media about how they seem getting younger and younger. It’s not that the girls are younger—it’s also that he’s older.

He’d always been charmed by Peter Pan. He resists telling anyone about it though—lest they ask who’s his Wendy, and somehow, he’s always known the answer to that.

Peter Pan never got to fuck Wendy either, he thinks. And they were probably happier because of it.

That’s what he tells himself when he gets her on the phone, and she’s telling him about the ridiculous man-child she’s been dating.

“He’s a palate cleanser, that’s all,” she says, and it surprises a laugh out of him. For the first time in ages, she’s properly single. The thing with Kate is that she always falls very deeply in love with people, and she tends to love them for a long time, at least until they do something completely hateful, and then she gets herself rid of them. She had told him stories of Stephen, when they were in Rosarito together, and then stories of Jim which had sounded rosy with delight while she was pregnant with Mia, and less and less enamored as their need to separate became more and more obvious. He had known Sam would stick around even before Sam himself did, just from the way she talked about him.

“But enough about me,” Kate says now. “How are you?”

Her tone is light and casual, and he finds himself telling her about shooting, working with Tobey. He doesn't mention any of the girls he's been seen with in the blogs and the papers. She only ever showed an interest in Blake because they met once, and her assistant had showed her those pictures that one time. She hasn’t asked about any of his girls since she met Blake. He doesn't really know how to feel about that. Mostly relieved. Of all the people in his life, he hates having to defend himself to Kate.

If he remembers rightly, Peter Pan eventually married Wendy's granddaughter. He wonders if Peter ever looked at his wife's grandmother and wondered, what if, what _if_.

He doesn't want to grow old and never know. It hits him that for the first time in ages, he and Kate are single at the same time. It's on the tip of his tongue to ask her-- something, anything, but he doesn't know. It's not like he can suddenly ask her out for dinner, after all these years.

She tells everyone who asks that she loves him. Between the two of them, he's more guarded. He's always surprised by what she lets slip to the media, before he realized that she was probably doing it deliberately.

Sometimes she'll say that she loves him like a brother. He's never told anyone that he loves her like a sister, because he doesn't. He gets what she means, but not really, not entirely-- he's an only child after all.

If he tried, if he tried and he failed, he would lose the greatest and most enduring friendship he's ever had. He has his boys, Tobey and Lukas and Kevin, but he and Kate had come out of Rosarito battered and triumphant and bonded, in ways that he had never felt with anyone else.

He couldn't bear it, if he lost that. It would be different, if he knew how _she_ felt, but-- no. This is good. This is enough.

So he listens to Kate prattle on delightedly about something Joe did or Mia said, and he keeps thinking, what if, what if, what if.

 _London, 2015_

He was walking in St. James Park, when he saw her.

She was sitting on a park bench, scattering feed from a paper bag. Her hair was blonde that summer, but he could pick her out of a line-up blindfolded. Even if you showed him only a slip of ankle or the back of a neck, he would be able to identify her.

 He sat down beside her, and it took her a minute to notice him. For a moment, he thought he was mistaken, but then she turned her head to look at him full-on. She looked weary and radiantly serene at the same time. He leaned forward to kiss her cheek, and felt her sigh against his cheek.

“Hello,” he told her, as he pulled back.

“Hello,” she replied, and she took out another handful of feed, scattering it for the birds, which landed all about them, cooing and fluttering their wings. He had his collar pulled up against the wind and a hat low on his head. “Fancy meeting you here,” she said, knocking her shoulder companionably against his.

He reached into the paper bag and took a handful of birdseed, tossing it out with the force of a discus-thrower.

“You know me,” he said, shrugging. “Always turning up like a bad penny.”

She laughed at that, and he turned to look at her. Sometimes he thought he could see all of her at once, her in her youth and the times when she’d been blonde or dark-haired, super-imposed on each other like a drug-addled vision, but when he blinked she was as she always was.

“Sometimes bad pennies are the luckiest ones,” she offered, and it was like they were spies in a movie, speaking in code that no one, not even themselves, could decipher for sure. Suddenly, she threw the bag into the air, so birdseed exploded all around them (thankfully not _on_ them), and birds descended out of nowhere.

“I’ve missed you,” he said, putting an arm around her.

“I’ve always been here,” she said, placing a hand on his thigh.

He placed a hand on top of hers, and squeezed her fingers. There was only one ring on her left hand-- it felt cool against his palm when he pressed against it. He liked seeing it on her. Ever since he'd seen it in that tiny shop in Soho, he knew that it would never look right on any other hand but hers.

In response, she pinched his thigh. He turned his face into her hair, laughing, as they watched the birds fight over every scrap they scattered.

 

 _London, 2021_

He lets himself into the flat with his own key. He’s balancing a bouquet of daffodils in one hand and the day’s shopping in the other.

When he opens the door, he notices the shoes tumbled by the doorway, and the music coming from inside. He walks quickly into the kitchen.

“Hey,” he says warmly, dropping the bags onto the counter. Her hair is reddish brown that summer, and the afternoon sunlight slants over it like a benediction. She turns her head to look at him.

“Hello, Uncle Leo,” she says, hugging him. “Mum should be out in a bit, she’s still in the bathroom.”

“Ah,” says Leo. If Mia weren’t here, he’d already be pushing open the bathroom door to surprise Kate, but that would be rash. He’s known Mia since she was born, and perhaps she knows more than she and Joe know more than they let on, but Kate had been adamant that they keep… whatever they were doing a secret from the children, at least for a while.

“I’m off then,” says Mia. “Will you tell her good-bye for me, when she comes out?”

“Of course,” he says.

“I’ll see you on Sunday then? Dinner at home?”

“Yes,” he says. He kisses her on the cheek, and she makes a face at him, and for a moment, she looks exactly like Kate as he first met her, all those years ago, in that tiny little room on the Fox lot.

“See you,” she says, and ducks out the door. Her boots make a clomping noise as she puts them on. Leo waits until the noise has gone before walking over to the bathroom door.

“Kate,” he says, knocking. “Open up, it’s me.”

There’s a splashing noise, and then she’s pulling open the door. Her hair is a tumble of red down her pale shoulders, threaded through with grey. He bends down to kiss one, turning it into a bite when she laughs and hits him in the shoulder.

“Come on in,” she tells him. “The water’s great.”

He kisses her again, and loosens his tie from around his neck.


End file.
